coolhady13 wrote:i got my cockatiel at the age of 7 weeks who was never handfeed before .

so would he still look at me like his mother ? because he was fed by his real mother for 7 weeks.

when i took him from the breeder he didnt recognize the syringe as food it took him about 4 days to understand that the syringe is food

That breeder needs his butt kicked. That is one of the reasons I don't like breeders. He had a sale and took it. A baby not eating for 4 days is dangerouse. He didn't have enough concern for that little life to teach you how to feed it.

My bird kids call me Momma. I don't know if they look at me like their mom or if I am their human with the name Mom. Whatever - we are bonded. They know I love them and they show love in return.

yes you are right . but dont worry the first 4 days i opened his beak by force and put i few drops of formula in his mouth then w8 for him to swallow and do this again so he wasnt starving

really hope he bond to me as a mate not a parent anyway there is no one else to bond with at my home my mom and dad have work and wont have time for him and my brother doesnt like parrots

It is a travesty to see hand fed birdies being offered as if that's a magical mantra for birdie companion. In addition to offering of unweaned baby parrot with the innuendo that having unweaned baby parrot meant you can impose yourself as a caring mom/dad to be rewarded by birdie love later.

Even wild caught birds, and old birds, can be loving companions when you treat them with respect and courtesy due to another intelligent sentient equal to you.

I have very dim view on 'hand raising' of birds in addition to offering of unweaned birdie for sale.That deprived the little birdie on proper interactions with its parents and designed to hopefully 'imprint' on it that he/she is a human. Are we that incapable of understanding and training with a bird that we felt compelled to rip a baby from his/her parents?

This lead to the marketing and selling of birdies thats not weaned. Perhaps better the profits to the breeders, but is that a better life for the birdie?Or is a perceived easier life to us the only thing that matter?

Of course, claims of 'handraising' sells especially to people who do not know and wanted something quickly.

It seems too that handraised birdies later on developed serious psychological problems.

The sad part is even older birds, and birds caught from the wild, are really trainable.

Riamfada was a wild caught CAG as seen in her open leg ring. She was a rescue and given to my charge when she was about 5-6 years old. She came to me bitey and fearful.

In about a year, she was doing free flights to me.

Yingshiong above is a white rumped shama. A shama is a songbird. He was caught from the wild at about 3 years old. He was given into my charge at about 5 years old. He flew to me on cue within a month of coming to me. Breeders of shamas told me even their breed shamas , some they hand raised, never ever landed on them. They told me above was the first ever they seen of a male shama landing on a human.

Libai is a Greater Greenleaf song bird. Caught from the wild and probably about 3 years old or so when he came to me.

Kim S wrote:I have heard, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that it is actually not good for your bond with the bird to wean it yourself. . . . So they are programmed to leave the one who raises them and bond with another. Natures way of preventing incest I guess.

Hi Guys I know its be some time since I last posted here, but I did promise I would report back on this. Little Belle was hand raised by me and also weaned etc In any case its almost 2 years ago when I commented on this, I can definitely say she has her strongest bond with me. So even though this is based on 1 bird, I honestly think the above statement isn't true at all. The fact that they are caged and live in a totally unnatural environment, I don't think you can always apply Natural behavior theories to our captive birds.

you would have bonded fine without handfeeding. but it does cause some birds damage later on like feather chewing when they don't learn how to properly preen from parents.my cousin handfed her bird and i adopted all of mine i would say if you saw how mine are with me and her with hers i have the same bond if not better than hers.

pennyandrocky wrote:you would have bonded fine without handfeeding. but it does cause some birds damage later on like feather chewing when they don't learn how to properly preen from parents.my cousin handfed her bird and i adopted all of mine i would say if you saw how mine are with me and her with hers i have the same bond if not better than hers.

I'm sorry to say I can't agree. We have another bird from the same clutch that the owner has had all sorts of problems with and after discussing them with her, they are all to do with the owner and not the bird. Also what you say about preening isn't correct in the slightest. Our birds when growing up would automatically preen each other, in fact you observe them doing this even at 2 weeks of age! Its worth noting that none of our birds have been hand feed in isolation to the rest of the clutch.

We've seen 5 clutches of Conures go to different people and the problems that have popped up along the way have been to do with their upbringing in the household they were in.

There are so many variables with bird and behavior and to put it down to one thing is pretty unbelievable.

Its also worth noting that the earliest we ever let our baby birds go is at 8 weeks! Most went around 10-12 weeks of age.

Note that I'm not talking about UNWEANED Baby birds, but rather the fact that as a breeder we brought up this bird from 3 weeks of age and she has bonded with me without any issues at all.

pennyandrocky wrote:handfeeding does not bond you more to your bird. also if you look up feather plucking/chewing one of the causes is taking the bird from parents for handfeeding.

I don't think handfeeding has anything to do with bonding at all. Our birds have stayed with their parents usually up to 3 weeks and some get brought up by the parents as I think it would be very unfair to take all their babies away. All I am doing is reporting back as to how our little bird went with me . . Can't really write any more at this time as she is on my hand while I try to type lol